As European and American diplomats analyzed Iran’s proposal to enter “serious talks†over its nuclear program, it “increasingly appeared” that its efforts to push past the Aug. 31 deadline were received as a nonstarter and would likely lead to calls for imposing sanctions.
The U.S., Britain, France and Germany plan to hold a meeting today to discuss the Iranian proposal and the prospect of drawing up a Security Council resolution to call for sanctions. However the meeting will not include Russia and China. It is not clear, says the New York Times, how Beijing or Moscow have reacted to the Iranian proposal, and the Russians have told Iranian officials they are under considerable pressure from the West to hold firm on the demand that Tehran suspend enriching uranium. In a separate article, the Times reports there’s a rising fear, particularly among European diplomats, that smaller countries on the Council are so angry over how the United States, and now France, have handled the Lebanon crisis that they will give Russia and China political cover to balk against imposing tough sanctions. France, it is said, has also alienated many members of the Security Council by offering only 200 troops to a peacekeeping effort in Lebanon. A European diplomat said that the Lebanese situation “has caused a lot of bad faith and I think that will play into this.”
A anonymous European official said that “in a convoluted manner†the Iranians said they would not suspend enrichment. The official said it would take time to digest the Iranian response, totaling 21 pages. Other European diplomatic officials, also speaking anonymously, said they read the Iranian response as a refusal to suspend enrichment, a precondition they said the Security Council for any future negotiations.
The Times adds that analysts in Tehran said Iran has already begun to brace itself for sanctions, calculating that initial sanctions would be relatively painless. But if the sanctions grew more biting, analysts here said they expected the Iranian leadership to move towards some type of face-saving compromise. Iran sits on some of the largest known oil reserves, but it is forced to import more than 40 percent of its gasoline because it does not have refinery capacity to meet its own needs. Sanctions that block gasoline imports would be extremely painful, the analysts said. [Emphasis added]
In addition to responding to the UN incentive package, Iran, fearing information leaks and domestic criticism, has gagged its newspapers from criticizing Tehran’s decisions. Iran’s government has urged the judiciary to clamp down on newspapers which spread “lies”, a government official wrote in a letter to Tehran’s prosecutor Saturday. Public prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi said Monday that government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham sent a letter to his office saying, “Those that spread lies against the government should be prosecuted.” Mortazavi’s office said Tuesday they were investigating the charge.
